It will be acid test for Bangladesh booter as they prepared to kick-off their FIFA World Cup-2018 qualifiers crucial match against Kyrgyzstan at the Bangabandhu National Stadium at 5 pm on Thursday.
Bangladesh does not have a very encouraging record as they have played twice against Kyrgyzstan and lost on both the occasion. In 2007, Bangladesh lost 2-0 in the Nehru Cup and lost 3-0 in the AFC Challenge Cup at Sri Lanka in 2008.
However, this time local football experts believe it may looked to be a different the story as Kyrgyzstan has remained out of the international circuit for the last ten months and due to this reason they have dropped 26 positions in FIFA rankings. Currently, they are 177 while Bangladesh is placed at the 167th slot of the FIFA rankings.
Bangladesh coach Lodewijk de Kruif was smart enough as he said that he was not thinking about the ranking superiority. “It may feel good when you have a cup of coffee in your hand, but in the field playing better football is all that matters, at the end of the day winning is everything, losing the match and staying ahead in ranking is useless, Kyrgyzstan is a good team and they
play in the superior circuit” said de Kruif.
Bangladesh will miss the service of winger Zahid Hossain who is sick while Riasat Khaton is injured, forward Wahed Ahmed was not considered for this match.
Alexander Kristinnin, the Russian coach of Kyrgyzstan said they are fully motivated to win the match. “We are not thinking of the FIFA rankings, the new format of the World Cup qualifiers had provided the new opportunity to teams like us and we want to grab the opportunity, we had a seven day preparation camp in the UAE before arriving here and we look forward towards a tough challenge,” said the Kygyz coach.
